I've uncovered a bug in select() when checking if it's okay to write
on a pipe. It will report "false negatives" if there is any unread
data already on the pipe, even a single byte. As soon as the pipe
gets flushed, select() does the right thing.
Normally, I wouldn't think this such a big deal, except that Apache
uses the writability of s pipe to determine if any of its children
that are log file handlers are dead. If select() reports it can't
write immediately, Apache terminates and restarts the child process,
creating unnecessary load on the system.
The bug exists in the 2.2.x kernels up to and including 2.2.17 that
I've tried and I don't know it extends beyond pipes. I've attached
sample code to demonstrate the problem, which works correctly on BSD
and Solaris.
Is this a know bug?
-- Paul Marquis pmarquis@iname.comIf it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?
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